Recovery
by TheSupremeShadowOverlord
Summary: This is a few connected short stories after Snakehead about how Alex recovered from his mission and adjusted to normal life. Feel free to leave suggestions on what you want to see. It's mostly angst including (so far) an apathetic job counselor, therapy sessions in a janitor's closet, meddling karate instructors, nerds with crushes, sleep troubles, and bullies.
1. Chapter 1

_A/N: This was originally going to be a chapter in a longer story about how Alex recovered after _Snakehead _and if anyone would like to read that, tell me. I just felt like it was a little overdone, and even if I have completely new ideas on it people might still get bored._

_I would just like to say that I have no idea if being a job counselor that jumps from school to school is a real thing, so just go with it._

_And regretfully, I do not own Alex Rider or any other characters from the series._

|~V~|

Louis Faure did not enjoy his job.

At first it had seemed like a good idea; he was helping kids choose what they wanted to be later in life, helping them find their strengths and achieve their dreams.

Of course, he didn't realize that twenty years later he would still be around a bunch of snot nosed, whiny, British high-school children all day long trying to get them to pick a bloody job so they wouldn't fail later in life.

He missed France.

Somehow, he always got stuck with the idiots with the most improbable ideas of what they wanted to be, and had to convince them to "have other plans, just in case". Honestly, not everyone can have _rich_ or _famous_ as a career choice.

So when he received a call in the morning telling him to be at Brookland Comprehensive School in Chelsea by noon, he sighed and grumbled as he pushed all his papers and pamphlets into a briefcase and made his way to another day of dealing with those insufferable annoyances.

By the time he got there is was 11:50 and he made his way to the office to sign in and begin his sessions. Each school would last a couple weeks to get through all the grades, though each student that entered his care was pushed out quicker than the prior. He got bored of them so quickly.

Louis watched the students that had free period enjoyed their various activities. The children playing football would all come to him with dreams of making it to the pros, and he would force a smile and encourage them not to slack off in other areas because they would need a back up plan.

The three girls laughing and sending rude sneers at anyone who dared to come near them would want to be models and actresses, believing that their beauty would get them wherever they needed to go because it had worked thus far. Louis would nod his head in agreement, all the while insisting they try their hand at a few clubs or electives so they had more skill sets.

A boy with thick glasses was reading under the shade of one of the few trees. He might have potential, with good grades and dedication, but Louis felt in his pessimistic soul the owl-eyed boy would have no realistic dreams either and would end up as sad as the rest of his classmates when all hope for a better future was lost.

Whenever his loathing for his job became internal discouragement over the students he was supposed to help, Louis wasn't sure. Maybe it had come first, and was what had made him truly lose all hope in his job.

He had been doing this too long.

As Louis walked through the hallways, he paid no mind to the rush of students around him. In turn, they gave none of their attention to him. At that moment, neither had the slightest affect on the other. If this schools' students were anything like all the others he had been to, that would still be true when he left.

At last he reached the office and a secretary — an attractive woman in her forties — who was working behind the desks told him to wait for the headmaster for a few minutes, so he sat down on one of the many uncomfortable chairs by the office door. After six minutes of constantly glancing at his watch and shifting in the seat like a child waiting to be reprimanded, a man with a balding head in a crumpled suit exited the office.

He gave the tired smile of man who had also worked with children too long and stuck out a hand to Louis. "Ah, you must be Mr. Faure. My name is Henry Bray, I am the headmaster of Brookland Comprehensive School." Bray had thick fingers that wrapped around Louis' smaller hand with a firm grip. Strong handshakes were probably in the job description of headmasters and headmistresses. He gestured for Louis to come inside his office and they sat down in their respective seats.

Bray continued, "I am glad you could make it, we've been concerned that our students don't realize how different the real world is compared to school. Multiple teachers have come to me with fears that students here don't take their work seriously and we were hoping you could help them gain some sense of realism. As a school, it is our job to teach how to survive out in the world once they leave."

Louis found himself nodding along. This was the case with many children. They couldn't see the harshness of the real world, the difficulties that they would have to face. School was a sheltered environment.

After they talked, Bray assigned Louis a room and was told he would be receiving students that needed help according to teachers and that he was simply to talk with them and nudge them in the direction of an achievable career. It was no different than any other school he had visited, and Louis quickly slipped into the lull of talking calmly to the many students that passed through, pointing out their strengths and advising them on jobs that would suit them.

They were all the same, just a string of children with too high of hopes. All until one day, a few minutes after Louis saw off a girl who loved her looks far more than her grades, there was a knock rapped on his temporary door. After a call of "come in" from Louis, a blond boy walked in and looked at him with a blank expression.

Louis simply smiled back, pushing down the distressing feeling growing inside him. Something about the boys' face made him feel nervous, but he couldn't let that interfere with his thoughts or judgement. He had a job to do, no matter how tired he had grown of it.

"Please sit down," Louis chirped. The boy made his way to the dark green chair in front of Louis' desk. The room was so small that they were against opposite walls and still close enough to each other to speak softly. "My name is Mr. Faure, I'm here to help you think about what you want for your future," he continued. He expected the boy to respond with his own name, or perhaps a sarcastic remark, but he remained silent. Louis tried again with a more straightforward approach, "What is your name?"

After a few moments of no answer, Louis began to feel increasingly nervous. What kind of child acted like this? It wasn't rude so much as. . . off. As if he didn't know how to act normally. The boy certainly didn't seem like the type with outrageous goals that needed to be brought down to Earth, so what was he doing here with Louis?

"Alex." The word startled Louis, he had started to think no reply would come his way at all. No surname was offered, and Louis did not press for one.

"Well Alex, I'm here to talk to you about different career choices that would be most suited for you. You don't have to decide now, but you should start thinking about these sorts of things." The words sounded empty, like a dentist asking a patient how their day went while both sides knew they couldn't care less.

Alex looked as if he was struggling to hide a smile, or more likely a smirk, but he nodded regardless and continued to focus his attention on Louis.

Louis decided to start out with asking a basic question; "What do you see yourself doing in, say, fifteen years?" Many of the children would shrug and claim they didn't know, so he expected the same of Alex.

After a few moments of concentration, Alex replied, "Somewhere I don't want to be."

Louis blinked. That was a first. Not only was it vague, but also a bleak outlook. Not the type of response he got at all. Alex hadn't had a ridiculous hope, but he also hadn't flat out said he had no ideas. In contrast, he implied he did have an idea where he would be.

Reclaiming his composure, Louis cleared his throat and brought himself from his thoughts, deciding to skip over the first answers' prodding and nudging. That was what he typically did after asking each question. "Alright, and what sort of activities or hobbies are you interested in?" came the next question.

Again, several seconds ticked by before the response. "I enjoy biking. It's been helpful multiple times, along with swimming. Mostly staying underwater without breathing for long periods of time. Snowboarding has helped me out of a tight spot once, so that too." Alex had looked at Louis the entire time, his brown eyes never straying from Louis' shock-filled blue ones.

What sort of reply was that? This teenager had managed to answer Louis' question, yet somehow remained just as intangible and unrelatable as before. He had answered a question about himself and Louis still felt no closer to knowing or understanding the strange boy. Maybe it was the impassive tone, or the fact that he described the things he enjoyed as useful more than fun or personally entertaining, but Louis felt that this kid was abnormal. Not to mention Alex had yet to break eye contact, and Louis was becoming increasingly nervous.

In the end, it was Louis who broke the stare-down by looking at the papers and pamphlets on his desk to avoid meeting Alex's piercing eyes any longer. He tried to cover it up by pretending to organize the scattered papers, but he knew there was no way Alex was fooled.

Deciding another question might diffuse the awkward tension that had been building since Alex walked through his doorway, Louis asked, "What are your talents?"

Alex's face began to look somewhat grim, but in the long minutes Louis had observed him he had realized the teen never had any full emotion. It was always in fractions or percents, never giving too much of his real feelings away. Never enough of the inner mental state was displayed for anyone to truly see what was going on inside. Even now, Louis wondered if the somber emotion was real or false.

Then the response came, "I've been told I have a lot of talents. I know multiple languages, and I'm practiced in karate. I have been described as brave, observant, and resourceful, along with curious. Perhaps too curious." Here his voice began to falter, losing its emptiness as trickles of emotion came in on some of the words, "Honestly, I don't really care. I wish I didn't have any of these talents. All they do if get me into trouble." Alex had looked down at his feet during the revelation, but now brought his head back up to meet Louis'. "I wish I didn't have any talents. I wish I was as normal as possible."

If Louis had been unprepared for the previous responses, he was hypnotized by the sudden revelation. Yet Alex continued to stare at him, his face as blank as when he first walked in. All the feeling had been scrubbed off, leaving his face a clean human slate.

Again, Louis opted to ignore the strange reply. He had no way to respond. What could he possibly say?

"What kind of career do you want, Alex?" Louis said quietly, kindness leaking into his voice. How he could care for a boy he had hardly spoken to, he didn't know, but something about Alex drew him in. He found himself wanting to help in some way.

Some form of compassion touched the edges of Alex's face. His eyes were filled with empathy, his lips curved upward slightly in a mock smile. "I don't think I'm going to have a choice, Mr. Faure."

Louis was startled by the flow of pure pity directed at him by someone a fraction of his age combined the sudden use of his name in such a formal manner. Every minute he spent with this boy brought a new surprise.

Alex stood up, pushing the chair he had been sitting in backwards slightly. "I'm sorry, I should get back to class. I've missed a lot of school lately already," he explained and turned to the door.

Thrown by the self-excusal, Louis didn't respond until Alex was halfway out the door. "Alex!" he called, stopping the boy for a moment. He look that as a sign to continue. "No one is normal. That doesn't mean we can't make our own choices." Louis found himself believing the words. Not trying to fool or con a child for the first time many years, but genuinely trusting the advice he was giving. "No one had the right to tell you what to do with your life, with your skills. They can help you, but it will always remain your choice."

How had it taken him this long to realize that? Why hadn't he known it all along?

Alex was still frozen with one foot in the hallway and one in Louis' makeshift office. The world seemed to pause for a long time while nothing moved but thoughts and emotions. Then the back of his blond head bobbed once, uttering, "Thank you," before Alex had walked out the door and it swung shut behind him with a heavy thud.

|~V~|

_A/N Also, I do not in any way share Louis' original view on schools (they are certainly not sheltering) or on kids and their aspirations. Frankly, I kind of hate him for thinking that way. He got better though, right?_

_Anyway, tell me what you think! If you have any comments, complaints, concerns, corrections, or confusions please tell me so that I may remedy them and we can all be happy._


	2. Chapter 2

_A/N: Sorry it took a while. Hopefully the next chapter will be quicker, but no promises. I suck at commitment._

_Minor language warning because Tom._

|~V~|

"I hate assemblies," muttered Alex under his breath.

Tom heard though, as he was sitting right next to Alex on the uncomfortable bleacher benches, and gave a quiet snort in acknowledgment. "We all do, Alex. But hey, at least we get to miss half of Government."

There was a hum of assent from Alex's direction as the noise level began to pick up. Honestly, it was to be expected with a school-full of high school students cramped into a gym, but _god_ were they loud. Maybe they shouldn't have allowed themselves to be ushered into the middle of the seating; the noise was probably quieter near the back or a bit closer to the aisle. Alex had the right idea to try to resist being placed here, but Ms. Bedfordshire had none of it and shooed them along with the rest of their classmates.

The bleacher floor under Tom's ratty sneakers started to quiver. He spared a glance at Alex and saw his friend was anxiously tapping his foot in a staccato rhythm. Not that Alex looked anxious; in fact, Alex had an expression of vague boredom and disinterest, like he always did. The action itself gave away the fact that he was uncomfortable.

Since Alex had gotten back, his emotions had become even more impossible to unravel. As if it hadn't been bad enough after the first couple times (or missions, as he now knew them to be), now it was a rare if nonexistent day when Alex was open with his feelings to anyone, even Tom. He didn't need a dramatic, tear-jerking heart-to-heart here, just laughing every so often or openly showing a reaction on his face.

Or a good, old fashioned, gut-spilling therapy session. Tom wasn't about to be picky, he just wanted to know his best friend's feelings again.

A screeching of a microphone brought him from his sulk. Headmaster Bray, apparently immune to the banshee shriek that had many school kids whispering curses, cleared his throat loudly over the sound system just to make sure he had their complete attention.

"Good afternoon, students!" The cheery tone of his voice did not correspond with the emotions of the student body, as no one blessed him with a good afternoon in return. He continued on uncaringly, "We have a very important announcement today about a growing problem in our school. Unfortunately, many students have not been taking their work to heart or considering future consequences of their actions today on their lives down the road." Why was he speaking so slowly, drawing out every last syllable? Maybe he just loved the sound of his own voice. "So, Mr. Kydd has offered to give you all a talk about academic dishonesty."

Tom resisted the urge to burst out laughing, but it was a near thing. Really, a few kids cheating on a test or copying their papers from the internet were not cause for a school-wide assembly and the assault of assembly noise on his ears.

Turning to Alex to share his thoughts and complaints with his best friends, he paused. Alex's face was pale, and his foot had stopped that annoying tapping but was now pressed against the bench. His breathing was stuttering and inconsistent, turning ragged as he struggled to take in deep breaths.

Huh. Maybe he was feeling sick or something. He _had_ looked ready to fall asleep in English earlier that day, but who wasn't ready to sleep through another interpretation of what inspired Charles Dickens.

Mr. Kydd had started his spiel using key words such as "permanent record", "college(s)", and "disappointed". Tom found it dull and increasingly repetitive as it went on and was ready to find a way to sleep sitting straight up before he had to hear "you won't get away with it" one more time.

This was almost not worth missing Government, even if they were learning about how great and special of an idea Parliament had been. Again.

It seemed the rest of the students agreed that this was too boring to endure and had resumed their previous talking, though at a lower level so as not to get caught. A few girls behind him had started arguing about their standings on the basketball team and had gotten shushed by a teacher keeping watch from the aisle, so the noise limit in their area had been set. It was not a very high limit though, as the noise around them started to increase and no one was reprimanded.

Well, if everyone else could do it, so could he. Tom turned to Alex to ask some questions about football practice while resolving to stay quieter than those around him so if someone ended up in trouble, it wasn't them.

Except Alex, with wide eyes and arms wrapped around his torso, looked like he had seen a ghost. One who had then stabbed him and let all his blood drain onto the floor and then had apparently dumped a body of ice water on him because his friend's skin was clammy and his entire body was shivering.

"Woah, are you all right? You look sick." Intelligent observation by the one and only Tom Harris, but he couldn't help it. Sometimes when he was worried his mouth developed a mind of its own, and not a very logical or sensible one.

Thankfully, Alex didn't seem to notice his best friend's idiocy and simply nodded shakily. "I'm fine. I just feel like I might faint. Or throw up. Best find a better place to do that than a cramped school assembly though." He abruptly stood up and walked toward the aisle, paying no mind to the shoes and feet that failed to get out of his way in time.

When he reached the stairs leading down to the exits Ms. Bedfordshire tried to stop him with a caring hand on his shoulder. Alex didn't have the time to explain to her as he avoided her gaze and walked quickly to the bottom of the steps, her hand slipping off as he made his getaway.

Tom watched his friend's decent with a mixture of shock and fear. What could make Alex run out like that? Was it some sort of spy thing? Was Mr. Kydd part of a terrorist organization that infiltrated schools and corrupted children all while under the pretense of enforcing academic honesty?

Probably not, considering that was the stupidest plan _Tom_ had ever heard of, and he wasn't even a criminal mastermind.

If this was somehow a spy thing, then Tom should stay out of his friend's way and let him get on with it. Maybe cover for him if a teacher got nosy, say Alex felt sick and had to use the restroom or whatever.

But while Tom might not have the gut instincts Alex was born with, he did have a deep loyalty and knowledge of his best friend, and that look of panic on his paled face told Tom that this was a lot more than a spy thing. For Tom, this looked to be a my-best-friend-needs-me thing, whether the best friend in question knew it or not.

So Tom got up and exited over the feet of disgruntled peers, taking more care than Alex had not to step on their feet in his depart from the land of academic honesty and noisy assemblies. Ms. Bedfordshire gave him a look that told him she was not happy with this situation, but that she was worried about Alex. He took that as permission to scamper down the steps and search for his best friend in need.

Of course, being delayed and having a best friend as a spy makes said friend very hard to find. After five minutes of running through the eerily silent halls to Alex's locker, the boys bathroom, and their History room he was struck with brilliance. Well, to be honest that must have happened at his birth, but now he had an extra wave of it because he knew exactly where Alex was.

Tom ran down a flight of stairs and prayed he wouldn't slip and break his leg or fall flat on his face in his mad rush. Then he flew down the hall to the place he and Alex had hid the first week of high school when Tom was being chased down by a group of (possibly drugged 'til high) upperclassmen: the janitor's closet.

Ah, memories. They had spent a good two hours in that closet, which was a surprisingly pleasant time. The closet was spacious enough for both of them to sit comfortably and smelled like lemony wood polish.

If Alex was running off to hide somewhere in the school, this was where he would go.

Stumbling to the door in his haste, it occurred to Tom last-second that he should knock before barging in. If he startled Alex when he was vulnerable. . . well the last time he ended up with his nose squashed into the ground before he knew what hit him, not that he would admit it.

After three loud knocks Tom opened the door and was pleased to find it wasn't locked. He was hopeless at anything remotely sneaky, including picking locks, which was why he had Alex.

All the smugness drained from him when he saw Alex with his back pressed against the corner and his knees curled up to his chest. He had also wrapped his arms around the legs tucked up to him and had ducked his face down to his knees.

Tom gently closed the door behind him and sat right next to his best friend. With the door closed, all the light had been shut out and he could barely make out the dark shapes of cleaning supplies surrounding him, but he could see the way Alex flinched away from where their arms brushed in the close proximity. Tom bit his lip and tried not to cringe from the guilt; it would get him nowhere right now.

Right now he just needed to be there for his best friend.

"You know, you can always talk to me. I mean, about your spy problems. And of course your other problems too, I just—" wow his rambling was not helping, "What I'm trying to say is that I know about the spy thing now, so you can talk to me about it. And, as your best friend, I will listen and not make fun of you," he finished magnanimously.

Alex stayed hunched in his fetal position, but he also didn't tell Tom to shut up, which he took as his cue to continue.

"You probably can't talk to Jack. She loves you and would listen and support you of course," no need to make Alex feel any worse about this, "but as your guardian she'll feel like she has to do something about it. To make it better for you. Knowing Jack, she might just run up to MI6 headquarters and tell them off."

He could see Jack, her face turning as red as her hair as she shouts off at a few of the most powerful people in Britain for making her charge upset. She was just about impulsive enough to try, even if there was no way it would end well.

There was a small noise from where Alex's face must have been, but whether is was a snort of amusement, a sniffle, or even if it existed outside Tom's imagination, he couldn't say.

"C'mon, Alex. You can't flip out on me and not say anything. I'm pretty sure it's not healthy behavior to run out of a school assembly full-speed and hide in a closet. Especially when the assembly was on something as important as academic dishonesty,"

Okay, that was definitely a snicker. Tom Harris: Child Spy/Best Friend Whisperer. He was totally getting that on a business card. Maybe he'd mail it to MI6.

They must have sat in that cramped janitor's closet for at least ten minutes, Tom making bad and almost-offensive jokes in between comforting his best friend, before Alex's head fully emerged. Tom couldn't tell whether he had been crying or not in the darkness if the closet, though his eyes adjusted just enough to tell that is he stood up straight his messy black hair would become a stringy white mop.

Somehow, he found he didn't care— about whether Alex cried or not or whether he became a mop-head.

The sounds of Alex's deep, steady breaths was the first thing to make him realize he hadn't heard Alex breathing until now. He also unclenched his hands from where they had been wrapped around his curled legs and was mindlessly rubbing the left side of his chest, about where his heart must be.

"Sorry I ran out. I'm not sure what it was, but all those people surrounding me and then all the noise. I couldn't handle it, I guess. I felt constricted, like something was squeezing my heart, which was beating out of my chest, and I was so sure something horrible was going to happen.

"I want to tell you about the missions Tom, really. It's just. . . I'm not sure how much I'm allowed to say about it."

A fact from the various spy movies and crime shows Tom had seen over the years drifted to the front of his mind. "I think you're allowed to say what happened as long as you don't use any names of specifics." Alex still looked doubtful, so Tom pressed on. "Anyway, it's not like I would say anything or that anyone would believe me if I did. So if it helps, you can talk to me. I always go to you when my parent's divorce gets bad. You should be able to do the same and talk to me about this."

Alex sighed, his thumb tracing a line over his chest. The exhale sounded relaxing, almost like a release. "Okay. Besides, I can't go back to Government class looking like this now, can I?"

He must have been referring to the evidence of tears on his face, but Tom couldn't see anything in the dark so he just agreed. Impromptu therapy sessions in the janitor's closet were much more important than Parliament in Tom's opinion.

"You already know what happened with— well, after I left you and Jerry. I don't think I'm ready to go into details about that, or that I'm allowed to even try. So let's leave that story for another time.

"After that I was in the hospital with 'Appendicitis' where I ended up with my next mission after some guys attacked me. Er, that is, they weren't really after me; they were after my roommate, but I fought them off. I messed them up pretty badly, and they got pissed." Here a bitter, mocking look came across his face. "Poor Steel Watch, Spectacles, Silver Tooth, and Combat Jacket.

"Later they came after me, locked me in an abandoned building and threatened to cut my fingers off. Once they realized I wasn't the guy they were looking for, they set the place on fire, which sucked, but I got out okay."

Alex hunched in on himself at the memories, however toned down and made casual they were made to sound. Maybe making everything sound easier and funnier than the reality of it was his friend's way of coping.

"Somehow I ended up in space." Tom started at that, not at all prepared for that sort of jump. "I mean, frigging space? Loads of kids dream about doing it, becoming astronauts or whatever. I guess a lot of kids dream about being spies, too. It sucks, by the way. Being a spy and/or going into space. Kids are idiots.

"So naturally when I came back down I crash-landed in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Australia. Their version of the SAS, the ASIS, picked me up. But of course, instead of dropping me off back home, they want me to do a bloody mission for _them_." He snorted bitterly.

His voice grew softer as he said, "I guess it's my own fault for agreeing. They had my godfather working for them. I wanted to learn more about my parents, and I thought if I went on the mission with him he could tell me. It was successful, of course, but he betrayed me. Tom, he was working for Sn— the people we were up against." Right, no names. Tom was better off not knowing anyway, he might let something slip. "He was a traitor and he fooled me. The ASIS knew the whole time and sent me with him anyway, but I was so caught up with learning about my parents that I—" Alex choked and had to clear his throat before he could continue. The story's volume had risen in anger, but now dropped back down to almost mum.

"He killed them, Tom. Set the bomb that took out the plane. My mum and my dad— his own best friend."

Alex stopped and even though Tom couldn't see him, he could picture the silent tears on his friend's face based on the way his voice cracked.

"I could have had parents. Real ones, not just a picture in a frame of people I can't remember. Who knows, maybe they would driven me to football practice and come to all those stupid school awards ceremonies. Ian was normally on 'business trips', so maybe my dad wouldn't have been able to come anyway." There was a tense pause before he closed the thought. "Useless spies, the lot of them. Us.

"But I would have liked to know, one way or the other. I was so close to having that life, and now I know why I didn't. And now I can't tell if this, this _knowing_, is better or worse.

"This life sucks," Alex finished in a soft voice.

They sat silently in the dark of the janitor's closet; Tom's arse went numb at some point from the linoleum floor and his eyes _still_ hadn't fully adjusted.

Maybe he was supposed to say something, but her couldn't think of anything right to say other than "That sucks mate" which his gut told him was a big no-no for a grieving friend. It was okay though; the silence felt right, somehow.

Eventually the final bell rung, signaling the end of Government. It almost made both of them jump out of their skin, and Tom fatefully half-stood because he was so startled and ended up with a hair full of mop. Damp, pasty mop.

He shrieked and jumped away, disappointed but not surprised with himself for forgetting the mop was their but freely angry with Alex for cracking up at his yell of fear. Some best friend, laughing at his misery. This, after Tom had listened to all his sucky spy-life problems.

Now that he was standing and the feeling of life was returning to his arse, he offered a hand to help Alex up. Sure, his best friend was some crazy teenaged super-spy, but that didn't mean he couldn't use a hand to help him up off the ground like anyone else.

A hand clasped his and he pulled his friend up, resulting in them both crouching uncomfortably as they made their way past rolling mop buckets and caution floor signs. Tom stubbed his toe on every last one, but Alex somehow managed to avoid them all. Bloody spies.

The glaring light of the hallway left Tom blinking stupidly before Alex joined him outside the closet. Most of the kids had already left for their class and they were probably going to be late for Physics.

His thoughts were interrupted when Alex said, "Hey, Tom. Thanks for, you know, listening to me rant."

Tom grinned. "No problem. Maybe next time you can rant about the rest of your missions against evil and I'll offer unhelpful opinions."

The late bell rang, helpfully informing them they had three minutes to get down a hall and up a flight of stairs. Alex smirked at him and taunted, "I'll race you," and ran off with Tom rushing after him and shouting about him cheating.

|~V~|

_A/N: Well there we are. If you have any comments, complaints, concerns, corrections, or confusions, leave a review so i can fix it and we can skip with joy._


	3. Chapter 3

Since he started karate nine years ago, Alex Rider rarely missed a lesson.

Naturally there were times he couldn't make it due to vacations with his uncle, but Nessa could always count on being contacted a month in advance. There was perhaps one occasion where he had fallen ill and that was the extent of it.

Or at least it had been, until Ian Rider had died.

Everyone went through a grieving process and it was understandable that Alex would miss lessons. People coped with loss in different ways, and while some adults Nessa knew and trained dealt with their problems through physical exercise, teenagers and children tended to curl in on themselves and shut the world out. It was perfectly natural for a young boy such as Alex to stop participating in a sport while grieving.

It was unusual that he should show up again a month laterand act as he always had, right back to coming to every lesson.

His behavior was the same, he went over the katas and exercises as he always had done, and though he may not have been as open or cheerful as before it was not something one would notice unless they looked for it. He hid it well.

In the current lesson, as she watched him go through his warm-ups with the other students and review the katas after yet another long absence—this one far longer than the others—he was acting as if he had never been gone. The students welcomed him back, just as she had trained them to do, and did not give him so much as a second glance.

This time, Nessa had enough. Alex had been gone for too long and she was past being just worried. Every lengthy absence had been longer than the last, but last time it was too much.

Turning her back on Alex to help one of the newer brown belts with his hook kick, she pushed the matter of her most mysterious student out of her mind. For the time being, anyway.

The lesson proceeded as normal, Alex fitting in with the rest of the class like he always had.

Nessa kept him in the corner of her eye the whole time and made a list of everything slightly out of place. His upper-cuts were higher than before—she had taught all her students to aim two inches past their own chin height, but his fists were reaching almost to his eyes and extending past a comfortable distance. To someone with less experience with students who never practiced, they might think it could just be from lack of recent training. Nessa, however, knew that the muscle memory should snap back.

No, this was as if he had been practicing his upper-cuts on someone much taller than him.

His kicks were faster as well. Alex's kicks had always been one of his strengths in karate because of the force he could pack behind them and their accuracy. They had never been particularly slow, but now they were impressively quick as well as precise.

Last, Nessa noticed his eyes. All of her students had been taught how to keep their peripheral vision open at all times, to see all sides for any unsuspecting attackers, but Alex had the skill down to an art. Even when he was focusing on perfecting a stance, she could see him angle himself in front of the the mirror so he could see everyone behind him.

Sometimes he would turn his head halfway to glance behind himself, as if someone truly would sneak up behind him inside her dojo in an unregulated attack. It almost hurt her pride to think that anyone wouldn't trust her students to not strike a fellow trainee when their back was turned, but Alex knew better than most people the rules of the dojo from all his time spent there. He couldn't actually think someone would hurt him here. The action of constantly looking over his shoulder seemed to be innate.

It was not, though. Nessa would have noticed it nine years before if it had been. There was something recent that must have caused a deep level of mistrust in him. Not simply a broken promise or horrid lie, that would cause and emotional reaction and emotionally, Alex acted the same as ever. Someone had betrayed him physically, and now he couldn't trust anyone with his back.

Practice continued and other students came for help with their moves or forgotten sections of katas. One of her older students, a sixteen year old girl who had been a black belt for many years, was acting as her second-in-command. With the simpler questions and easier fixes she perfected the younger students while Nessa could focus on the more extreme problems.

If Alex showed up more consistently, Nessa was planning on making him one of the official leaders of the class as well. He used to help out the junior's class all the time, and he had been at the dojo longer than most.

After he finished a kata with a bow he turned to the person he preformed it with, a brown belt who had been struggling with the footwork of Chintō kata. Demonstrating the feet himself he showed her how to distribute the weight, gently poking one of her feet with his toe until she got it. Then he gave her an encouraging grin, which she returned, and let her practice the kata on her own.

Nessa deferred the student she was currently helping to her second-in-command and made her way over. "Alex!" she called out, getting his attention and watching as he made his way past the other pupils.

"Hello, Sensei," he replied, giving her a small, formal bow.

Nessa knew she had to talk to him, but she had no idea how to bring up the topic that she actually needed to get to. Best to start off safe. "I'm happy you have returned to lessons. We can always use the extra help, and you are very fun to teach."

That won her a small, but genuine, smile. "I like helping out. Teaching the other kids is fun, I don't mind it at all."

With a short nod, she continued with her original train of thought. "Have you kept up with practice while you were away?" She carefully left of why she asked the question, wanting to see if Alex would come up with an innocent reason of her wanting to make sure he kept up with training, or the real reason of how his fighting style had changed.

Alex broke eye contact for a moment and glanced in the mirror on the other side of the dojo. "No, not really. I've been busy."

It had to be a lie, there was no way his fighting could change that much in the time he was gone without him practicing. Kicks don't get faster by themselves, otherwise her lazier students would be much better than they were. Though, the way he said it, his lie sounded so much like the truth. As if he himself believed it.

Instead of dancing around the topic, she shattered it with a staff. "Your upper-cuts are higher than they used to be. I thought I taught you to pick on someone your own size. Unless you were planning on punching your attacker in the eye, in which case you should go with a back-fist and not an upper-cut."

Alex looked shocked for a tenth of a second, and if Nessa hadn't been training to notice every detail she would have missed it. As it were, she simply wondered if she imagined it when Alex quickly slipped into a grin. One nothing like the tiny smiles he gave when he was actually proud or happy about something. The grin looked more false than a straight punch aimed from ten feet away. "I'm sorry, I hadn't noticed. I'll work on fixing that, Sensei."

He was leading her off topic again, pretending his slip-up in his upper-cuts had nothing to do with his absence when all logic pointed to exactly that.

"What I'm wondering, Alex, is how your upper-cuts went from being near perfect to this without you practicing them differently," she asked, effectively pinning him and trying not to feel guilty about it. Perhaps she should leave it alone, but he was her pupil and as long as he was in her dojo he was Nessa's responsibility. That meant she had to ask questions better left alone; she had to protect her students and look out for them.

Alex, to his credit, didn't look angry or defensive. His face fell, looking like a sad, lost child. Nessa rarely considered the kids she taught actual children, especially not when they were second degree junior black belts, but now she was harshly reminded that Alex was also just a fourteen year old boy.

He didn't answer her question, wouldn't meet her eyes, and that told her all she needed to know. Whatever situation Alex was in where he had to fight people taller than him constantly, it was not something he could tell her about, no matter how much he might want to. In addition to that, he respected her enough not to come up with a half-hearted lie on the spot and then make a break for it.

Nessa could appreciate that, at least.

"Look Alex, I understand if you can't tell me," she began. His eyes flicked up to meet hers and another flash of surprise flitted across his face, faster than a back-fist. "I probably couldn't do anything for you even if you did tell me." If Alex thought there was nothing she could do to help him out of this serious situation, he was probably right. He was a very smart boy. "Just keep in mind that if you ever do need me, for any reason, I'm here. You can come to me and I'll do whatever is within my power to help you."

Alex was meeting her eyes fully now, scarcely blinking without the faintest trace of wanting to look away like before.

"Thank you, Sensei," he said, giving her another small smile she loved because of how real it felt.

After retuning the smile, she switched over to fake-glowering at him "Oh, and Alex. I hope you can make it to more lessons, or you'll never become an official assistant." Despite everything, Alex seemed to genuinely like helping the younger students and he was good at it. He would make a wonderful assistant.

Beaming at her, he nodded and gave a parting bow which she returned. "I'll try not to miss any more, Sensei."

That was all Nessa could ask for.

|~V~|

_A/N: Okay, so it was helpfully pointed out to me by The-Wasteland-Renegade that Sensei is not spelled Sensi and the internet lies. I mean, my instructor spells it Sensie but I think he's just having us on and probably laughs himself to sleep about it. Either way, it's now fixed. If you guys have any other comments, complaints, concerns, corrections, or confusions, leave a review so that I can improve my writing and you don't have to bang your head against a wall over simple errors._


	4. Chapter 4

_A/N: Hooray, I didn't quit this story, and I probably won't. So, uh, hi. If you're actually still reading this (or just started) I love you._

_Warning for homophobic language and just bad language in general._

|~V~|

Okay, here's the thing; Kai was really, extremely, unhelpfully, exceedingly, immensely gay. And not in the happy way. In the wow-I'm-a-horny-schoolboy-who-wants-to-make-out-with-other-boys way.

It did not help that he went to a private school in London. That basically meant he was surrounded by boys with accents much posher than his Welsh one and they were all wearing ties and button-up shirts. Then sometimes they would loosen their ties and unbutton the the top buttons, which did not help matters _at all_. And, of course, they were all prats with money and a holier-than-thou attitude which Kai really shouldn't find as hot as he did.

He swore the world was out to get him.

The entire matter was made so much worse one fateful day in Algebra. Kai was good at maths, but then again he was a straight A student so he was sort of good at everything school-wise, excluding a social life. All that went down the drain on an evil spring day—his hopes, dreams, career ambitions, GCSE scores. . . all right, so he might be exaggerating a bit here, but his life was definitely over.

It was a nice day out, which was a pleasant surprise after all the snow/rain/slush they had gotten the past week, and half the class was just gazing out the large windows at the rolling green yard dotted with leftover snow bits and the big puffy clouds. Kai was sure that if you opened the window, a warm breeze would drift in, carrying the sound of birds tweeting and a women singing.

The teacher was writing an equation on the board with variables and coefficients and other things Kai couldn't really be bothered with at the moment. The teacher explained the different parts of the equation and what to get rid of first to find an answer, not that many people were really paying attention.

"Could you open a window, Alex?" he asked while staring down at his teaching notes.

There was no response, so he asked again, "Alex?"

The blond boy next to Kai, who looked completely zoned out, startled out of his daydream and glanced at the board. Everyone looked at him, which Kai though was kind of hypocritical considering they were all zoned out too.

"Yes, sir," he started, his deep brown eyes narrowing fractionally as he looked at the board, "_x_ equals seven and _y_ is fifteen."

The teacher sighed in a I-don't-get-paid-enough way and said, "Yes, Alex. You're absolutely right. But actually I was just asking you to open a window."

Apparently, no one but Kai though it was incredibly hot that the attractive blond kid could solve algebraic equations off the top of his head. A few snickered, Alex looked and even mix of sheepish and annoyed as he went to open one of the giant windows, which did not release the sound of opera as Kai had predicted. Pity.

Kai gave him a sympathetic smile as he sat back down, which Alex returned with a slight curling of the corners of his lips.

It was so sweet and sincere and made Kai about ready to melt into his shoes.

And thus, Kai's life came to an end.

Because, in a school of hot boys, he had to go develop a crush on the one that _hardly even showed up._

"Stop moping," Tam informed him as she took another bite of her sandwich.

"I'm not moping," Kai muttered as he stared gloomily down at his pizza, poking the mound of cheese and half-expecting it to rear up and attack his spork in retaliation.

Tam gave him a look that informed him he was fooling no one. "Every time Maths-Boy—"

"Alex Rider. Everyone knows his name, you can admit you do too," Kai interrupted.

"_Maths-Boy_," she insisted, glaring at him through her bangs, "goes away on his whatevers—"

Kai snorted. No one knew where Alex Rider went, but everyone had a guess. Except Tam, because she was_ above_ all that.

"You mope and sigh like some maiden left behind by her sailer boy. Get over it," she finished her speech and took another bite of her sandwich.

"But it's different this time. Yeah, he's away a lot, but never for this long. I'm allowed to worry," Kai explained, feeling better now that he had validated his not-moping.

Tam sniffed distastefully. "You should just get over him. About a quarter of the girls fawn over him already, he doesn't need boys drooling after him as well."

Grinning at having caught her, he mocked, "You're just jealous he's stealing all the pretty girls."

With a glare that could freeze hell over, Tam replied, "Damn right I am. Allison Jeffers spent all of Art going on about what a 'bad boy' he must be."

Kai winced. Allison Jeffers was the girl who sat next to Tam in Art and though Tam didn't like to admit weaknesses, she definitely had a soft spot for Allison.

"I'm sorry my crush is stealing the heart of yours," he told her honestly. Tam was his closest (read: only) friend, and Alex dating a girl in the first place was not any sort of situation he wanted. "But hey, at least Allison agreed to go to the next LGBTQ meeting, even if she's only joining so it will look good on her record."

Tam gave him a judgmental look. "It's the same excuse we both tried to use. She could very well be bi or pan."

Shrugging, Kai refused to rain on her parade. At least one of them deserved a crush on someone who swung the right way(s).

He spent the rest of the day studiously taking notes in class and not-moping over Alex's continued absence. The guy didn't even know his name, and Kai couldn't stop thinking about him and hoping he was okay. Tam was right; he really needed to get over this stupid crush.

Now if only he could find a magical how-to book for getting over cute boys.

After school was the LGBTQ meeting, which he was co-president of along with Tam. The meetings always brightened his day, made him feel less alone. Today was a particularly gratifying day as they explained asexuality. The meetings were the highlights of his week. Until, of course, they ended and he had to walk home in the semi-darkness of five o'clock in the winter.

Based on all the data he'd gathered, there was about a fifty percent chance that Kai would be attacked after meetings because they corresponded to thirty minutes after the rugby practice ends. Which meant that he really shouldn't have been so surprised when he got shoved from behind into the dirt.

Kai was lying face down in the unpleasantly moist soil for a total of two seconds, during which his thoughts when from "god dammit I'm an idiot" to "ah, oh well, get up and face the music". After that he did indeed push himself up, spitting out the dirt clumps in his mouth and turning around to try and be prepared for the next attack, at the least.

And what luck, he was just in time to watch as a fist came flying towards his face. The meaty knuckles hurt like hell against his lip and he felt it split and begin to bleed under the pressure. But hey, no teeth came out, so that was nice.

Kai was an exceedingly bad optimist.

He stumbled back, hand instinctively going to his mouth. The blood gushed onto his finger and a voice in the back of his head started scolding him about infections from the newly acquired dirt under his nails.

Looking up, he identified his attacker. The guy that shoved him was Garrett, who was well known for being almost kicked out of school at least three times. He was also the worst player on the rugby team, or so Kai had heard. The other two guys were second stringers as well, and Kai vaguely recognized one of them because he had delivered a particularly nasty punch in the gut the week before that had Kai wheezing on the ground for what felt like hours.

"He's still standing, better hit him again," remarked the guy who Kai thought he hadn't seen before, but it was getting pretty dark and he normally got too dizzy after the first couple hits to do much facial recognition.

Garrett looked contemplative, as if this were a business proposal that required much thought. He was lucky it wasn't, because Garrett was about as smart as Kai was straight. "I dunno if I should, I heard being a dick sucker is contagious." He made a gagging face, earning snorts of laughter from both of the shit-heads behind him.

The ever-growing destructive part of his brain went "but I'm not a dick sucker if I'm getting sod-all by way of dicks to suck" and mourned how he was probably going to die before he'll ever get a chance to even try. Since that part was actually just his horniness picking an inopportune time to whip back out, he elected to ignore it in favor of trying to release all the air from his lungs as Garrett threw another punch to his stomach. It didn't do much good.

Kai wrapped both arms around his middle, bending over in a useless attempt to protect himself from further pain. Clenching his arms tightly, he squeezed his sides with his fingers and wished that he wasn't such an idiot and had just made a run for it while he was still able-bodied enough to have made it. Okay, to be fair Kai ran about as fast as a a child in primary school and he got tired after five minutes of any form of physical exertion, so Garrett would have caught him pretty quickly if he had even tried, but Kai tried to be an optimist again and pretend he would have gotten away.

It occurred to him that should probably stick to being a sad, gay nerd.

Apparently sometime during his self reflection Garrett stepped back to allow prat-who-punched-him-last-week-probably to have his turn, which Kai was made aware of because the guy grabbed him by the shirt collar, dragged him up, and socked him in the face. This time, it was right on his eye, and Kai just knew his face would look like hell for the rest of the week.

Garrett and that other prat stayed back, laughing their arses off and watching Kai get beat to a pulp. "Dumb faggot can't even throw a punch!" Garrett shouted, causing his buddy in the back to howl in laughter and the guy who punched Kai's eye to give him a feral grin.

"You should have stayed in the closet until graduation," he mourned at himself, but he knew that there was no way that would have happened. Tam needed someone in her corner, someone to support her, so when she asked Kai to co-president the new LGBTQ club with her how could he let her down? She got enough shit for being black, she didn't need more thrown at her for being one of the few people in there school that wasn't straight as a flag pole.

Even if it meant he was now getting beat up in fairly regular intervals.

Just as Kai was about to brace himself for the rest of the attack, more specifically the next punch or kick, he saw a blur in the darkness and the guy in front of him toppled over and crashed into the ground with a yelp, releasing Kai to stumble back in a state of sudden shock.

Before anyone could even question what had just happened, unnamed shit-head number two was confronted by the blur, which was now identifiable as a person. He managed to block the first punch to his head, but the fist switched directions and came at his solar plexus to quickly that he had no hope of blocking it. He let out a loud groan, the release of air broken up into choked sections as he descended. His noises of pain joined the ones belonging to the guy at Kai's feet in a symphony that was truly music to Kai's ears.

"José!" Garrett shouted, looking quite scandalized that his innocent little bullying session had done a one-eighty and turned into such a cock-up. Really, Kai would have felt bad for him if he wasn't such a huge dick and Kai's torso didn't feel like it had been run over by a monster truck.

Kai's savior slammed their fist down on José's head and he crumpled to the ground in a pathetic heap. For a rugby team, they sure were about as resilient as paper.

"Probably why they're all anger-filled second stringers," Kai mused as Garrett and his savior, who was probably a dude but Kai's vision was a little too blurry to jump to any conclusions, circled each other. Garrett looked ready to execute a tackle, shoulders hunched up to his ears and feet spread wide. Kai's rescuer, however, looked calm and collected, fluid on his feet and ready to counter anything.

Which apparently was a valid assessment, because when Garrett came at him with a quick and deadly-looking hook punch he simply stepped out of the way, grabbed Garrett's arm as it came by, and launched a kick into both his side and then up into his armpit.

Garrett looked shocked as he grasped his side, yowling in advocacy of the sudden pain. The mysterious hero grabbed Garrett's shirt, spun him around, and looked him dead in the eye.

"Why don't you pick up your friends and get out of here?" he asked in way that sounded nothing at all like a question and more like an ultimatum. Garrett didn't respond for a moment, then tried to launch a second attack with his other hand. It was blocked effortlessly and Garrett received a back-fist to the nose for his trouble.

He squawked, and began nodding furiously. "We'll go, we'll go, just let go of me and we'll leave, I promise."

Dropped unceremoniously to the ground, he scrambled to get up and grab José first, who managed to get up on his own two feet, before running over the the guy trying to stand up in front of Kai.

When Garrett came near, Kai leapt back out of the way. Well, more like lurched, but he _was_ feeling pretty woozy. After he helped his accomplice up, he gave Kai a glare that would normally make him want to throw-up in fear. But he was safe, his bullies were running away with their hypothetical tails between their legs, and his snarky nature that Tam swore would get him killed one day came out in the form of a cocky smile and a wink.

Garret's face turned red as he dragged his two buddies off, glancing over his shoulder to give them one last scowl of hatred.

But Kai turned to thank his savior, he found himself face-to-face with none other than Alex Rider.

His mouth dropped and he stared, gaping, as Alex gave him a concerned look. "Are you all right? They didn't hurt you too badly, did they?"

Kai's brain overloaded over the face that the cutest boy in school just saved his bum only to ask if he was okay and all he could do was stand around trying to catch flies, the fact that it was winter be damned.

"You probably shouldn't have done that," Kai informed him through his swollen cheek. Wait, what? Why was he telling his crush not to rescue him? This was not how it goes in the movies, they were supposed to kiss romantically and then skip off and get ice cream or something.

Alex Rider, bless his sweet and cursedly attractive face, looked confused. "Why? You were in trouble, you looked like you needed help."

God, Kai's gay little heart was going to explode. "No. I mean, yes, I needed help. Definitely needed help, but you shouldn't have helped." Why was he trying to convince the boy he has a crush on not to care about him? But the honesty and fear in his head made him spit it out. "They're all going to think you're gay now."

Alex just frowned and his face contorted into an expression of genuine confusion. "Why is that such a big deal?"

Kai dabbed the blood welling on his lip with his shirt, and began ticking off the list on the fingers of his other hand. "Well, everyone will make fun of you, no one will want to be near you, people will beat you up on school grounds," here Kai gestured to the surrounding area and gave Alex a shrug. "It would have been in your best interests to stay out of it, you know?"

There was a pause where Alex looked at him with his deep brown eyes and Kai stared back, trying and epically failing to understand what emotion was lurking behind the blank mask on Alex's face. The moment dragged on, but Kai didn't mind to long as he had an excuse to stare at Alex without any repercussions.

Then Alex's face broke into a huge grin and he cracked up. Which was not what Kai was expecting at all, but he wasn't about to complain, because Alex openly laughing was probably the most beautiful thing he had ever seen.

And he kept laughing, doubled over and clutching his stomach much the way Kai was, before straightening up. Then he proceeded to give Kai a the more wonderful, genuinely happy smile. "You do realize everyone thinks I'm in a gang or running drugs, right?"

Oh. Right. People already made fun of him, avoided him, and there was a very good chance people had tried to beat him up now that he was a social outcast, but judging from what Kai had just witnessed, it probably hadn't gone to well.

So Kai returned the smile, ignoring the ache of his lip where he stretched it. "Fair enough."

Alex held out his hand. "Even though you probably already know of me, I'm Alex."

Holding out his hand that didn't have the lip-blood splatter on it, because he was sophisticated like that, he shook Alex's hand. "I'm Kai. Thanks for saving me, by the way."

"No problem, I just finished a tutoring session and saw them ganging up on you, so I helped out a little." He released Kai's hand, and Kai mourned the loss of it's warmth and the butterflies that went crazy from the skin-on-skin contact with a cute boy. Not just any cute boy either, which made this all the more wonderful.

"Hey, are you really okay? Your face looks pretty busted up," Alex frowned at him.

Kai nodded. "Yeah, I'll be fine, I only live a couple blocks from school." He gestured in the general direction of his house.

Alex did not looked convinced. "If it's not far, I'll walk you home. I don't want you to pass out on the street. Just let me grab my bike." Giving Kai a warning look that said 'you better not run off without me', he trotted off to the bike racks.

When he came back, wheeling his bike alongside him, he nodded his head to the school's entrance to the street, signaling Kai to lead the way. Which he did, trying to wrap his head around the face that Alex Rider had just saved him from a beating and was now walking him home, and Kai really could not have picked a more perfect person to pine over. Tam was never going to believe this.

The sun had fully set and it was getting genuinely dark out. At first they walked in comfortable silence, Kai quietly taking stock of his injuries as cars rushed by on the street alongside them. As they were waiting at a crosswalk, a thought struck Kai.

"You said you were at tutoring?" he asked, wanting to clarify.

Alex nodded, glancing over at him. "Yeah, since I miss so much school I've fallen pretty far behind."

Kai used all his willpower to keep from jumping up and down. "I could tutor you." Then he blushed, thinking that he was probably being too forward and obviously Alex already had a tutor. "I mean, I'm a really good student," he should really try not to sound like a self satisfied prat in front of his crush, what was he doing, "and I've already done the work you'd need to catch up on, so I could help you out. I've done tutoring before, but they kicked me out when I became co-president of the LGBTQ club."

There was a pause as the light changed to "walk" and they both began to cross. "You should have shut up, Kai, he doesn't care about your life story," he told himself. Why was he such and idiot?

"You would really be willing to do that for me?" Alex asked, sounding confused and maybe touched.

Kai cleared his throat. "Yeah, of course. It can be a thank you gift for saving me," he reasoned. Plucking up his courage, he looked over at Alex, who had that smile that just barely curled his lips, the sweet, sincere one that was engraved into Kai's brain from that fateful day in maths so long ago.

"My tutor now is an old women who teaches me the most complicated way of doing everything," he confessed, the smile still gracing his lips. "I would love for you to tutor me, that would be amazingly helpful."

Cheeks heating up to the temperature of the sun, despite the wintery chill, Kai awkwardly glanced down. "Okay, how about after school tomorrow? In the library?"

They were outside his house now, the warm light from the windows spilling onto the street. He turned back to Alex, waiting for his reply.

Alex nodded. "It's a date. See you tomorrow." Then, as if he hadn't just made Kai's over-the-moon brain explode, he hopped on his bike and peddled away.

|~V~|

_A/N: Do schools in England even have LGBTQ clubs? Does Alex's school have a rugby team? Did I mess up on attempting to not sound horribly American? This is why this is fanfiction._

_If you have any comments, complaints, concerns, corrections, or confusions, drop a review so that we can all hold hands and be merry._


	5. Chapter 5

Alex woke up at 3:47 in the morning coated in a layer of cold sweat, breathing hard and trying to keep his heart from beating out of his chest.

His chest hurt so badly, and his hand was clutching desperately at it and twisting fistfuls of his t-shirt. Dying. He was dying, and there was nothing he could do about it. They were going to take him apart piece by piece and all he could do was sit there helplessly with no escape grabbing his shirt like it could prevent them from stopping his heart from beating—

Breathe. Alex would be fine, he was always fine, he had to be. It was just a dream, a stupid dream. Yeah, it could have easily been his life if he hadn't gotten away but he always got away. Too quick on his feet, coming up with plans on the spot.

Slowly, he loosened his grip on his sweat-spotted shirt now that his heart wasn't breaking through his ribcage. The fingers turned slack and fell into his lap and he stared dumbly down at them.

Blue light from outside bathed his room in an eerie glow, the moon clearly visible through his window. Everything was silent, not even a whisper of wind against the house. It felt surreal. Alex couldn't really be here, in the peaceful world where everything was dark and quiet with warm blankets tangled around his legs and soft pajamas against his skin.

There was harsh light shining through his eyelids, turning his small internal land blotchy shades of red. Beeps and muffled conversations surrounded him, a cold exam table pressed against his back, limbs heavy and immovable, sharp knives being pressed against his skin—

Stop. He couldn't dwell on it. The dream was nothing, just his imagination going through what could have happened. That was normal, right?

It was just the lingering feeling he had after all his missions, how easy everything could have gone down a different path if he hadn't been quick enough or resourceful enough at a key moment.

After his first mission when he got those thoughts, he would tell himself MI6 would have found a way to get to him before it was too late. Though he knew it was a lie, that no one had come when he was stuck in a tank with a man o' war, it reassured him enough to move on.

Then Point Blanc happened and Alex knew that if he hadn't found a way out of that cell, he would have been dissected before the SAS crew was sent in, if they would have been sent in at all. He was alone on his mission without backup, but he told himself that was okay. He could handle himself, get to safety, do what needed to be done.

That's why he was always fine, he had to always be fine. No one else out there could help Alex except for himself.

Which was why the dreams were stupid. All they told him was he might not be good enough one day, and that would be the end. He already knew that.

The cold winter air finally reached past his thoughts and caused him to shiver. Alex pulled up the blankets to his shoulders clumsily but couldn't bring himself to lie down. Wide-awake with all traces of sleepiness gone the moment his nightmare woke him, lying back and letting the consciousness slip away again seemed impossible.

Hair that had been damp with warm sweat was now frigid and locks fell against his forehead, making his head ache. Alex pushed them back with his fingers, ignoring the way his hands were shaking and chalking it up to the cold air.

Bleak moonlight continued to shine through the window, his room remained in a dark blue haze, and Alex stayed sitting upright on his bed, huddled in blankets with sleep the furthest thing from his mind.

Thoughts continued to crash through his brain, but none connected into tangible lines of logic or understanding. The luminescent numbers of his clock switched by but Alex gave them no attention. He just stared at the opposite wall, looking blankly at a Chelsea poster as he tried to shove every nightmare, every low point from a mission, out of his head.

After an hour of this he dropped his head to this blanket-covered knees. There was a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach that wouldn't go away and he was still in his sweat-stained t-shirt and pajama pants. He felt cold, clammy, unclean, covered in tiny scars trickling blood that crusted against his skin—

Alex threw off the blanket and ran down the hall to the bathroom. He pulled his shirt off over his head and undressed, disgusted by the sweaty clothes that stank of fear and weakness. Yanking the shower handle to full power, he jumped underneath the spray without caring whether the water was cold or warm so long as he could get clean.

It was cold; so cold that it shocked the air from his lungs as the icy spray came down on his head and shoulders. Once, on a trip to southern Germany with Ian, they had hiked through the forest on the mountains for hours to a waterfall. They had jumped into the freezing water and Alex had never been so cold before in his life. Not only the force of the water had hurt. It had been the temperature that made it feel a thousand times worse.

He couldn't remember what had happened after they jumped under the waterfall, but he could recall the pain in perfect detail. Right now, with terror clamping down in his stomach and the frigid water crashing on top of him, his limbs froze in place and all he could do was stand there and think about falling off the waterfall in his makeshift canoe.

More time past, stretching out in long seconds and snapping back like a rubber band, leaving Alex with a feeling of missing time. The water turned lukewarm, but he could hardly feel it on his skin anymore. The cold must have numbed him.

Eventually he reached out and turned the water off, watching the faucet drip with a strange fascination before abruptly exiting the shower and grabbing his towel off the rack. While he dried his hair, he looked disgustedly at his crumpled, sweaty pajamas. The idea of putting them back on was so revolting he shuddered, instead wrapping the towel around his waist and making his way back to his room, clothes pinched between his fingers.

He tossed them on the floor in the corner next to other wrinkled clothes and made his way to his dresser. After a moment of indecision, he shrugged and pulled on his school uniform. There was no way he was falling back asleep, so he might as well get dressed.

The clock blared the time as 5:02. Alex flipped on the light, deciding that is he was up and dressed he might as well catch up on some work.

He pulled his maths textbook out, remembering that he'd finished all the assigned homework for his classes but that the teacher was offering extra credit for the challenge problems at the end of the chapter. With so much other work, Alex hadn't considered doing it, but now that he had everything else done he figured he might as well. Plus, he desperately needed more points to bring his grade up from all the tests he hadn't taken that he could only hope his teacher would let him retake.

Plopped down at his desk, scratching out problems on his sheet, Alex quickly got into a routine. Copy the problem, write out the process to solve it, circle the answer and move on. They were difficult enough to keep his mind occupied and off everything that threatened to spill out of his head, and he appreciated that. It helped him scrape off all the unpleasant feelings and thoughts to focus on his work.

The hours slowly passed, Alex moving on from maths to an essay draft that wouldn't have to be finished for another two weeks, but he figured this way he could get his teacher's advice and possibly turn it in early so he had extra time to do the English coursework he hadn't had a chance to get done. He was flipping through the short story it was on, finding evidence as he chewed a nail, when he heard a noise down the hall.

Alex straightened, immediately on high alert. His heart was pumping loudly, hands clenching into fists, stomach churning uncomfortably. Following the noise, he compared it to the layout of his house. It was coming towards his room, halfway down the hall, shuffling slowly.

After a moment, a loud yawn echoed in Alex's ears and he realized it was just Jack coming to wake him up. Scolding himself for freaking out because he could have scared Jack if she had come in on him ready to fight, he leapt up and over his backpack to get to the door. For some reason, he thought that Jack knowing he was doing homework early in the morning instead of sleeping would worry her. She normally didn't care when he stayed up late, admonishing him half-heartedly because she also would get caught up in a show or book and forgo sleep, but he could just picture that small frown, the slight furrow of her eyebrows as she told him to go to bed early the next night and him knowing that wouldn't happen.

Also, being a teenager and staying up late was a lot different than waking up before the sun rose and not wanting to go back to sleep. Alex would have to be an idiot not to know that would uselessly worry Jack even more than staying up.

So right when she was outside his door, he pulled it open, using the door and his body to obscure his homework covered desk and a bed that he could only hope didn't still have sweat stains on it.

Jack jumped slightly, blinking blearily at him through tired eyes. "You're up early."

Smiling to reassure her, he ran a hand through his hair to make it more sleep-messed when he felt some damp strands and remembered his shower. "Yeah, I got up a little while ago—" only somewhat a lie "—and took a shower."

Watching Jack for his reaction, he realized any sleep-mussed hair wouldn't even hold a candle up to hers. It looked like a red bush growing out of her head, he noticed fondly. Alex honestly didn't think she would fall for his "just woke up" look when her version was closer to "just came back from the dead".

Though Jack had an uncanny ability of picking out his lies when he least expected her too, she just nodded sleepily. "Come downstairs, I'll get out the cereal."

Alex nodded, making sure Jack had stumbled down the hall and out of sight before he stepped back over to his desk, bookmarking the story and putting all his books in his bag and halfheartedly straightened his clothes. His shirt was a little wrinkled and his tie wasn't sitting right on his chest, but he couldn't bring himself to care. Slinging his bag over his shoulder, he took a look around his room and memorized where everything was so he could tell if something was out of place and made sure to leave the door not-fully closed. Jack always left it open when she came into his room, normally rushing out after remembering something she had to do somewhere else. If it was latched, he would know someone else had come in.

Bounding down the stairs, he listened to the mundane sound of Jack opening cupboards and taking out boxes of cereal. There was a bang of hollowed wood and a few muttered curses before Alex walked in on Jack trying to hold her foot in one hand and cornflakes box dangerously close to spilling in the other.

Grinning at her antics, Alex picked the box out of her hand, placing it on the table as he grabbed the ice pack from the freezer. Jack muttered her thanks, hissing in pain as she placed the cool ice on her reddening foot. Alex just shook his head and poured his cereal. There was already a cup of tea at his seat and coffee at Jack's, so she must have been down here before she woke him up.

"Soooo…" Jack began, sitting down with her hurt foot in her lap. Alex took his first bite of the cereal, watching her suspiciously. "Why did you get up so early today?"

Alex, being the perpetually prepared and experienced-at-lying spy he was, absolutely did not choke on his cereal in surprise. He just swallowed down the half-chewed bite and blinked extra hard through the strain as the food went down his throat like a rock. He had thought Jack was too tired to be thinking this much, but maybe the pain had woken her up. If that was the case, there was no way he was going to get away with lying. "I had a nightmare and it woke me up." There, totally the truth and Jack wouldn't worry too much as long as she didn't ask what time it had been.

Jack was nodding, watching him carefully with a squinted expression. It would have been comical if Alex hadn't known how that look could draw any info out of a person. It even worked on Tom. "And you couldn't fall back asleep?" she asked, tone soft.

Nodding, Alex gulped his tea.

"Do you need to talk about it?" Jack offered. She was still looking at him, eyes open and honest. If it had been anyone else he would have told them to mind their own business, or subtly changed the subject. "Make a joke about it to avoid it" was a tried and true method of evasion he used all too often. With Jack, he didn't feel the need. She always tried to understand and he could trust her—she was family, even if they weren't really related.

"No, I'm okay," Alex said dismissively as he traced the rim of his mug. And he was. He had already pushed the dream from his mind. There was no sense in dwelling on those feelings, not when they brought back so many memories he was trying to forget. If he talked about it, more of those thoughts would come back and distract him from his life. How could anyone focus on maths if their head was full of how to escape secure mansions?

Jack responded, "All right, as long as it's not bothering you," and let it the whole thing drop.

They spend the rest of breakfast in a comfortable, early morning silence until it was time to leave for school. He put his bowl in the sink and grabbed his backpack from where it leaned against a table leg. Before he hurried out the door, he gave Jack a kiss on the top of her messy head to which she returned in her special way of shouting after him, "Remember to grab your jacket!"

He made sure to lock the door again behind him, not wanting anyone to sneak up on Jack before she was fully awake. Grabbing his old bike from where it leaned against the porch, he walked it down to the sidewalk. The Condor Junior Roadracer was getting too small, and he was already looking at new options to replace it with, but it would do for now.

The trip to school was cold. No snow had come down yet, but with the storm clouds looming overhead and the weather getting even colder, everyone at school had already started to talk about the possibility.

Alex stopped at a crossroad, slamming on the brakes as cars rushed past. He waited with a couple other cars, checking them from the corner of his eye. One man was talking into his phone, a woman dressed in a suit tapping her steering wheel impatiently. No one paid him any attention, or looked the slightest bit suspicious.

The light changed and Alex peddled off, wanting to get to school in time to talk to Tom and maybe James, if he was around and still wanted anything to do with Alex. It seemed like James was avoiding him ever since he got back.

When he got there, he saw Tom arriving just ahead of him. After locking up his bike, Alex called after him and jogged to catch up.

"Hey Alex, what's up?" he asked, slowing down and allowing Alex to reach him. Alex responded with a shrug, too out of breath to hold a conversation. He might have biked a little to fast.

"Oh, you have got to hear what Mr. Bray did yesterday," Tom began before launching into a story that involved way too many school code violations to be true. Alex nodded and laughed along anyways, asking questions at the right parts and getting a few laughs out of Tom too. It was so mundane, nothing happening out of the corner of his eye, no desperate need to get somewhere, no constant threats lurking under the surface.

_Just a normal day at school,_ he thought as he rubbed at the phantom pain in his chest.

|~V~|

_A/N: Hey! Sorry it's been like, 5 months. I'm still alive though, and continuing this story (which btw is not a gay story, but I __am now tempted to make it one)._

_Friendly reminder that Alex is crap at dealing with his problems in this story and everything he's doing here is a textbook representation of defense mechanisms. If you find yourself suppressing things or being constantly on guard like this, talk to someone you trust about it._


	6. Chapter 6

Everyone always talks about that moral grey area. The spectrum of right and wrong, good and evil. In every video game, TV show, crappy old books assigned for class, they all go on and on about it.

Honestly, Oscar thinks they're all idiots. Take school, for example. Either you get a question right or it's wrong, you get a good grade or a bad one, you're smart or you're an idiot. It's simple. That's just how the world works.

Oscar himself is an example of this. When he first started secondary school, he was weak. He had pimples and wore old clothes that didn't fit him too well because his family couldn't afford anything better. Every day he would eat lunch alone in the halls, and after school the older kids would beat him up behind the science building. And Oscar let them.

But at the beginning of year ten, he started to turn that all around. He joined the football team for a little while before he left his old school and got stronger and faster from it, his acne went away once he switched over to Brookland and got away from his bullies and stopped caring about his grades. Oscar was no longer weak. He was strong, and the opposite of what he used to be. There was never any in-between grey area.

Of course, after he realized this, he was much more confident. He was just asking to be picked on before, and he got what he deserved. Back then he couldn't imagine why those older kids would choke him or shove him into the dirt, but as he witnessed it from the other side he understood. They just looked so weak and pathetic, sniveling, not even bothering to stop what they had coming to them. It made him sick.

There was no way they could ever learn how to get strong, how to make it in this cocked-up world, unless they changed just like he did. They'd be trampled into the dirt and left to rot unless they could figure out their own way to avoid the piss.

_So really,_ Oscar mused as he kicked the coward curled in a ball on the ground one extra time so the lesson could really sink in, _I'm just guiding them along the same way I was helped out._

And if it worked this well for him, these kids would thank him in the long run. Hell, maybe they'd do the same and help out the next generation. The big guys teaching the little guys how to take their place.

One of his friends grabbed his shoulder, switching his focus from sneering down on the kid at his feet to his big-nosed accomplice. "What?" he snarled. Oscar really didn't mind, he was done teaching anyways, but he had to keep up appearances. If these guys thought he was weak, he would be back in the dirt with the kid.

Either he was up here leading these mindless pillocks or he was on the ground. Black and white.

Potato-nose (his name was Ethan but really, who gave a damn?) had a worried frown as he pointed in the other direction at a figure that was getting closer to them at an alarming rate.

Oscar stepped in front of his three helpers and tilted his head mockingly at the approaching threat. It was a boy who looked vaguely familiar, meaning he was probably in the same grade as Oscar, but he was short. Even as he got close enough to stand a couple feet from Oscar, panting and running a hand through his spiky black hair, he still looked tiny.

"What'cha think you're doing here, kid?" Oscar asked, raising his eyebrows. Hey, it's an honest question. He had no freaking clue why this kid had just run all the way over here. Like sure, everyone knew this was where Oscar liked to give out free lessons to those less fortunate, but no one ever _did_ anything about it.

"Leave Max alone," the short guy said in what was a surprisingly calm voice considering his face was still blotchy and he was bossing around four classmates that all stood at least a head taller than him.

Looking down to his left side, Oscar watched as "Max" curled into a tighter ball. "He's fine. Trust me, he's better off now than he was before." Now this kid could learn how to defend himself, take on the world. If he didn't, then Oscar would just have to teach him again.

Short Guy spluttered, looking at Oscar like he just said he paid fifteen pounds for coffee. "How the hell can you say that when he's bleeding right in front of you!"

Well Oscar wouldn't expect him to understand. This guy hadn't had the same experiences Oscar had, and he didn't see the way this would all turn out in the end because he couldn't see the world like Oscar could. He was wrong now, but if only he knew what Oscar did then he would jump to his side.

Being the good samaritan that Oscar was, he opened his mouth to explain this to his simple minded classmate when the git looked right past him at his friends and kept on going. "Why are you guys doing this? Is he paying you or are you just as much of pricks as he is?"

Oscar side-eyed them, watching as they looked away from the confrontation awkwardly and shuffled their feet. They only followed Oscar around so they wouldn't be the ones on the other end of a beating. It was either join him or get out of his way, and they were the ones who picked the more appealing and safer option.

Plus, it was fun. The power rush you get when you shove someone over or trip them with a simple foot in their path can't be beat, and doing it with a group at your back made it all the better.

Again, because Oscar is a gracious person, he was willing to explain this to someone who obviously just didn't understand how these things worked when Ethan nudged him for the second time. Oscar was turning to glare at him when he saw that Ethan had nodded in the direction of Short Guy. Or rather, behind him, at the approaching figure of yet another student.

Oscar wanted to groan. Seriously, he was done with Max. Max was old news. Why are these people bothering him?

The new student wasn't running his heart out like Short Guy had. He strolled up, acting like he owned the world, and gave everyone a cold glare. It was disconcerting. The way he stood looked casual, but his face was expressionless. Oscar felt like this guy knew everything about him and was completely unimpressed, like Oscar couldn't matter less.

That really, _really_ pissed Oscar off.

After he was done sizing them up, he looked over to the Short Guy and cocked his head to the side. "Tom. Need a hand?"

"Tom" didn't even glance his way and simply replied, "Screw off, Alex, I got this."

However, New Guy was not convinced, as he stayed put and simply turned back to face Oscar.

"Well," Oscar said, deciding he was done with this crap and it was time to cut his losses. "Nice to meet you, take your freak and be on your way." Here he grabbed Max from where he had propped himself up on the wall and swung him in the direction of the do-gooders.

It was so stupid, but there was something in the way Max stumbled with one hand plugging his bloody nose that made Oscar freeze. The movement was so familiar. Limping home, holing up in his room with a box of tissues as he tried to clog the bleeding, laying in bed and prodding the new bruises. Ten minutes ago he hadn't even known this kid's name and now he felt like he knew his life story.

But Max was already turning away, leaning heavily on Tom as they walked back to the main building. His friend just stood there, watching as Oscar spun on one heel and headed over to the front gates. Oscar refused to look back to see if he was still watching them leave, despite the temptation.

His friends were following him, of course, and he paced himself to walk alongside them to do damage control.

"Well that went to shit," the tallest of the four of them, Asad, stated bluntly. Oscar had always liked Asad, and not just because he was also Arabic and enjoyed not being a lonely minority for once. Asad actually had a brain between his shoulders.

"The neighborhood vigilantes? Oh please, they were nothing. We were already finished." Oscar reassured, making sure to be expressive in his nonchalance.

Asad nodded, not seeming to care much either way, but Josh had decided now was a good time to become relevant. "Yeah, but how do we know they won't go crying to a teacher? Or that they won't show next time?"

"If I say we don't need to be worried, then we don't." Oscar included a shrug while he drove the nail home. "C'mon, do you honestly think that scrawny guy had a chance against the four of us? Not even worth worrying about."

"What about the other guy?" Josh continued in his nasal voice. "That was Alex Rider. I hear that he beat Garett and José up last week."

"Those rugby tossers?" Oscar snorted. "A primary student could beat them up. They were useless meat sacks who didn't know their left fist from their right, and didn't care so long as they could still throw a punch." Sure, the physical aspect of bullying those wash-outs had in spades, but they had no clue as to the mental side of it. The emotional, manipulating way of getting whatever you want whenever you want. That was what Oscar was a master at.

So whoever Alex Rider was (no seriously, who was this guy?) Oscar was not impressed.

Asad frowned. "Still, I don't think our usual routine is going to work with those two around."

Covering his thoughts with a smile, Oscar remembered how watching Max brought back his own memories. Maybe this was a good chance to switch things up. If beating up the losers wouldn't work, he'd just find a different cesspool to target. "Don't worry Asad, I'm way ahead of you."

|~V~|

So he had told Asad that he had this all figured out, but honestly he hadn't gotten past "find new target" and it had already been two days.

Going on three, as he was walking down the hall to his class. He was already late, so there was no point in rushing.

He rounded a corner and almost ran straight into a teacher holding a pile of papers. They wobbled precariously but didn't fall as Oscar dodged to the side.

"Hey there Ms. White, lovely day isn't it?" he said with the most pleasant smile he could muster.

She didn't seem too impressed. "Patton, shouldn't you be in class?" she scolded him, still trying to balance the stack of papers in her arms. He could pinpoint the exact moment her assessing eyes noticed what he was wearing—technically he _was_ wearing his uniform, but he hadn't bothered to tuck in his shirt and the knot of his tie hung loosely around his neck.

She opened her mouth, probably about to scold him, when he replied. "Yes, I'm on my way right now. I'll see you in English." Her eyes narrowed, she didn't look like she was going to let him get away so easily. "We're working on Shakespeare, right?"

A light seemed to fill her eyes and she straightened her spine, just like she always did in class when someone actually answered a question right. "Yes, we'll be working through another one of his sonnets."

Just as he thought, her weakness was students that showed interest in the subject matter. "I'm looking forward to it, but I better get to class now!" He waved goodbye and and jogged off before she could remember to write him up for a dress code violation.

His first class was History, and all they did was watch movies. The teacher usually showed up late, took attendance, then put on some bland movie while everyone in class talked. When Oscar walked in ten minutes late no one batted an eye, and he made his way over to his usual seat next to a girl named Molly.

Molly was a quiet girl with average grades who kept her head down. She also popped prescription pills that weren't hers behind the storage shed. One time Oscar had caught her and as payment for not going to the faculty, she told him all he needed to know about the school. For someone who was new and rising to power, that meant everything, and little Molly seemed to know more than her fair share. When you looked invisible, people had a tendency to forget you were there as they gossiped nearby.

"Hello Molly, what's the news?" he asked, dropping his backpack down beside him.

She shrugged, not meeting his eyes. "Not much. Allison Jeffers got dumped by her long term boyfriend, Fred something or other. Apparently he thought she was cheating on him." Molly snorted, a very unflattering noise.

"Oh? Who did he think she would have such a torrid affair with?" Relationship gossip was normally useless, but sometimes it came in handy. It was good to keep up to speed, anyway.

"Alex Rider, if you can believe it." She shook her head, like the mere idea was impossibly stupid.

That guy again? Seriously, who the hell was he?

Their teacher came in, dragging his feet before sitting down heavily at his desk. Oscar turned back to Molly after he pulled out his attendance sheet and began to mutter as he checked off names. "Who's Alex Rider, and why don't I know him?"

She was pulling out a notebook. Oscar thought she was going to actually take notes before he notices the long, number-filled equations. Picking up a pencil, she answered, "He was gone most of this year, and you just switched over from a different school, right?" The movie began to start up, a dramatic montage of people dying and old men signing documents. "Anyway, everyone sort of forgets about him and then he'll pop back up. No one really cares about him except right after he comes back, then there's all these rumors and things like Fred accusing Allison of cheating occur."

This was the perfect time to get information on this blight to his operation. "What are the rumors?" The whole class was talking, not even bothering to whisper or pass notes.

"Most of them are about what he gets up to while he's gone. The teachers all say he's sick, and he's got the notes and such, but even they don't believe it after so many times. Miss Bedfordshire thinks he's got some mental health problem, most of the guys say he's been running drugs, Lucy Bunker insists she saw him riding a motorcycle in a biker gang…" She paused, considering. "I'm pretty certain it's all nonsense, but there's no way someone can be sick with so many different diseases in one year when they were perfectly fine last year."

There were shots and gunfire from the movie as people tragically died onscreen. It seemed to Oscar that whatever this Rider kid was doing out of school, it wasn't good. Honestly, he sounded like the guys who used to beat Oscar up. They rarely came to class, just hung around the school and did drugs behind buildings. Talk about useless members of society.

Oscar was a firm believer in teaching others, but it seemed like he had been choosing the wrong people to focus on. Maybe he should choose guys like this Rider, the big confident types who think they're so much better than everyone else. If anyone deserved it, they did.

And he already knew who to start with.

|~V~|

To be fair, he wasn't even doing anything all that bad. It's not like he was dumb enough to drag Rider out back and try to beat him up. Oscar also wasn't stupid enough to try anything alone.

The first time was amazingly uneventful, yet still gave him that rush of power. Josh and him were walking in the hall between classes when he saw Alex walking towards them, going to a class in the opposite direction. He altered his course a little and when they met in the middle, Oscar slammed his shoulder into Rider.

Rider hadn't been carrying anything, which was a shame, but he stumbled and had to balance himself on a passing student. When he turned to see who had run into him, Oscar gave him a wide smile before turning around and continuing on his way, promising Josh he could have the next shot.

Josh did indeed get to do the next one, but only because they shared the same class. Oscar was truly heartbroken he didn't get a chance to witness it, but Josh gave him the play-by-play.

Apparently the teacher had asked a question and no one offered an answer, because really, who ever offered an answer? But then the teacher called on Rider, who actually hadn't known the answer. That was pure gold, Josh had that one handed to him on a silver platter. So after the other kids who enjoyed watching other's pain snickered a little, and everyone's gaze was still fixed on Rider, Josh had taken the opportunity and from his vantage point in his seat behind Rider, he made a beautiful imitation of the idiotic, vacant expression of someone as dumb as Rider. The whole class had burst into laughs.

At first Oscar almost didn't believe him, but for the next couple days he'd see Rider pass people in the halls, only for them all to make the exact expression behind his back. The whole thing was just too good.

The next time though was Oscar's favorite. It was right after school, when everyone was rushing to their lockers or hurrying out of the building when he was set to meet up with his other 'friends' (could he really call them friends? He's pretty sure they all barely tolerated each other) when he saw Rider at his locker. The door was in front of him, covering half his body but Oscar recognized him instantly. He was reaching in, shuffling around to grab his books and Oscar was suddenly struck with a compulsion that felt like the gods were smiling down on him.

So, unnoticed in the bustling crowd, he walked right up to Rider and slammed the locker door shut on his arm.

In a hallway full of metal lockers clanging and excited friends reuniting, no one even noticed. Oscar wasn't dumb enough to stand around and gloat in front of a guy who probably got in regular fights. Whatever he was doing on his time off didn't involve knitting sweaters for lost kittens. So he kept walking, only looking back over his shoulder to see the reaction.

Rider was holding his arm, inspecting it for damage most likely. Turning his head, he saw Oscar and his eyes widened in realization. If he wasn't aware that Oscar and his friends were targeting him before, he was now.

Oscar didn't know what he expected. Fear, maybe, because that's what all the wimps he used to teach responded with. Or anger, yelling and challenging Oscar to fight him right then there in. Instead he got the most slow, patronizing, smile. The unspoken words rang in Oscar's ears, matching the smile in flippant, snobbish tone. _Nice try, but you'll have to do better than that._

Turning back around to avoid looking at that stupid smile, Oscar went to find the others, catching them just outside the main doors and informed them on the newest development of the situation. Josh and Ethan laughed, clapping him on the shoulders. Asad asked if he thought Rider would tell.

"Nah, because if he did I could always say it was an accident. Besides, he doesn't seem the type does he?" Oscar assured Asad. Ah, Asad, always looking out for them.

Ethan frowned. "What do you mean, he's not the type?"

Oh Ethan. For a bully, he really didn't get people. Him and his potato nose were lucky to have Oscar. "Seems more the type to try and fix it all on his own," he explained, surveying the outgoing students like they were his prey. "Like he's been through enough to know that no one would help, and smart enough to know it'd be worse to even try."

And he should know, he was speaking from experience. There was a point when you stopped looking around for someone to swoop in and save you, and Rider was definitely there. Pompous, over-confident prick.

The day wound down from there, the potential energy brewing under the surface for the next couple days like London smog. There were more incidents during those days, but none particularly noteworthy. Any time Rider walked past him while he was with his friend group, they'd abruptly stop talking to watch him, noses raised high and smirks lingering as he gave them blank, dead stares. There was a noticeable bruise along his arm, darkening in thick yellowed line. A couple times his short friend Tom would glare at them, but he was to be purposefully ignored. And Oscar really didn't have a quarrel with that guy, even if he did have bad taste in friends.

It seemed like they were successfully taking Rider down a peg, Oscar contemplated while he was watching another movie in history (this time the white people were talking about how they were being discriminated against and Oscar was making a point of not watching any of it). Still, he needed more. Rider still walked around like he was special, like other people, _normal_ people, weren't worth his time.

He turned next to him to ask Molly for more information when he saw her applying chapstick, staring down at her maths homework with narrowed eyebrows. Watching the chapstick slide back and forth, he was suddenly struck with an idea.

"Hey Molly, mind if I borrow that?" he asked, smiling in the face of her open-mouthed confusion.

|~V~|

It was a genius plan, one so good that when Oscar couldn't find Ethan, Josh, or Asad at lunch he decided to go through with it on his own. There was no guarantee they could find Rider after school, and no way it would work in a crowded hall with people jostling each other in a hurried rush to get to class.

He wandered around the halls after everyone had run off to lunch. Rider hadn't eaten in the cafeteria at all this week, so he had to be around here somewhere.

Oscar finally spotted him bent over a drinking fountain and totally oblivious to everything around him. The tube of chapstick suddenly felt heavy in his pocket, but he made his way over and ignored the mess of emotions going through his head.

When he was close enough he took a deep breath and pressed the curved end right between Rider's shoulder blades.

Oscar had run this scenario over in his head, predicting every outcome possible. Most people would freak if something that felt like a gun was pressed into their back, but it was too much to wish for that Rider would scream and piss in his trousers. Maybe he'd jump but then try posturing, pretending it didn't really bother him and that he wasn't scared. No matter the outcome, the goal was to scare him badly enough that he'd stop strutting around, acting like he was so special.

Despite his preparation, Oscar can safely say he in no way expected what happened.

First Rider froze, the water stopping and the odd hum of the fountain dying with it. He slowly stood up, still not moving or really reacting at all.

Right when Oscar started to think he should say something, he felt something knock his hand up. The chapstick went flying out of his fingers. His arm was above his head and his wrist was throbbing. Then he felt something behind his ankle, pressing the fabric of his jeans against his skin. There was a slamming force against his jaw and another less than a second after on his nose.

Before he even was able to process the fact that something wet gushing out of his nose, a force pushed against his chest and his feet flew out from under him, unable to catch him with whatever was pressed against his leg blocking the way. His back hit the floor hard, knocking the wind out of him. Staring at the ugly plaster ceiling, wheezing to the best of his ability, wondering what the hell just happened.

A knee was planted in his stomach, forcing out his last sputtering breath as he looked up at Rider. Except he didn't look anything like the cocky kid in the halls. His arms were stiff and sure where they held down Oscar's shoulders, strands of his hair hanging down in front of his face that Oscar looked up though at his face. There wasn't anger or panic, not like anyone else Oscar had fought. Just this competent, deadly calm.

Trying to push Rider off him, Oscar gasped out, "Dude, chill. It was just a joke, it's not like I'd actually pull a gun on you at school." The pressure on his stomach lessened, allowing Oscar to gasp and suck in air.

The arms holding his shoulders down left, allowing to reach up and plug his nose where the blood was still dribbling down his upper lip. He tried sitting up, causing Rider to get off him fully and back away.

"Oh." _Oh?_ Is that all he was going to say about this? He just knocked someone to the ground in a couple seconds on pure instinct!

Oscar got up, using the hand not holding his nose to help him stand. "Yeah, what the hell was that? Like I get if you've been on edge, we've been harassing you, but that was. . ." it was natural, like he did that shit every day.

"I'll take you to the nurse." Rider said, looking slightly worried. "Your nose might be broken."

In no state to argue, Oscar let Rider lead him down to the office. He was still reeling from the attack. What the hell could make someone react to a possible gun by not even trying to talk them down, not reacting with any sort of fear whatsoever?

Naturally, the nurse had a minor freak-out when Oscar walked in covered in his own blood. She rushed them into a side room, pressing a bag of ice on the bridge of his nose after assessing that it wasn't broken, making him promise to hold it there until the blood stopped.

After she left the room, the door clicking behind her, Oscar turned to Rider. "Care to explain what the hell just happened?" he demanded.

Weirdly enough, Rider looked away. He never looked away, he always stared right back and faced whatever Oscar tormented him with head on. "I do karate, it was just instinct."

Total bull. No one teaches a kid to confront their attacker head on, especially not when they had a weapon. "Suuuure it was," Oscar responded, rolling his eyes and adjusting his grip on the ice pack.

Rider turned back to face him. "Maybe I thought you were from a rival gang, coming to get me," he said casually, voice completely toneless.

After a moment's pause, Oscar burst out laughing. Not a good idea while his nose was still bleeding sluggishly, but it was just too funny. "Fine, don't tell me. You don't owe me anything anyways."

Rider shrugged. "I am sorry for hurting you," he said sincerely.

So it wasn't intentional, ha! Oscar totally called it. Still didn't explain why Rider would react that way, but whatever could cause someone to have such a violent knee-jerk reaction wasn't something Oscar wanted to get mixed up in.

"Apology accepted," he replied haughtily, lifting his chin to look down his nose at Rider. There was another moment's pause before a grin, one so different from that patronizing smirk after the locker incident, split across his face.

Huh, normally people thought he was serious when he said crap like that. For someone who seemed so much like his old bullies, Rider really wasn't so bad. Maybe the world isn't quite as black and white as he wished it would be, because by all rights he should hate Rider's guts. They guy just knocked him to the ground and made him bleed. Yet, here they were, laughing together like everything was fine. And it felt fine to Oscar, even though it shouldn't. He should be in the "against" side, but it didn't feel that way anymore, even if the dude sure wasn't Oscar's biggest fan either.

Max couldn't have been only on the other's side either, or any of the other kids he used to beat up. He did that to help them, even though now it seemed like a pretty useless thing to do. No one really deserved that kind of fear, the constant mind-melting kind that made you stop looking for help or that wiped all emotion from your face the second you were faced with danger.

Maybe _no one_ deserves that?

The whole thing was a lot to take in, especially while he was sitting in a tiny room across from a poster with a cartoon cigarette telling him smoking would kill him. It's not like he could just stop, he needed that power or he'd be right back to being the victim and he'd promised himself to never be that weak again. But maybe he could stop physically attacking people, stop trying to ruin their lives for his personal gain.

Asad, Ethan, and Josh might ditch him for this train of thought. But maybe they all had some other stuff in common. They could hang and play video games sometime, talk outside of trying to ruin the lives of their classmates.

"Hey, your nose looks like it's stopped bleeding. We can probably make it back to classes before lunch is over if we leave now," Rider told him.

Hopping up, the walked out and returned the ice pack to the nurse. Oscar started to head to his locker to grab his gym shirt but stopped and turned back around last second.

"I'll see you around, Rider," he insisted, less of a goodbye but no longer a threat.

And Rider, that cheeky bastard, just smiled and waved him off. "See ya."


End file.
